The Threepenny Opera

The Big Issue
The Stage The Sunday Times Musical Theatre Review

Imagine a world where evil goes unpunished, money is corrupt, the law is fickle and lowly souls remain on the poverty line. London’s most notorious criminal, Macheath, has recently married Polly, the daughter of Jonathan Peachum, leader of the beggars.

Mr. Peachum is so displeased that he concocts a plan to have his new son-in-law hanged. Through a deceitful web of blackmail, bribery and brothels, Macheath is eventually caught and taken to the gallows. Will he hang or will society offer him an escape?

An opera for beggars.
Conceived with magnificence such as only beggars could imagine, and an economy such as only beggars could afford

The New Wolsey Theatre’s Peter Rowe and Graeae’s Jenny Sealey have joined forces once again to bring you their anarchic version of Weill and Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera – adapted from John Gay’s The Beggars Opera.

A motley cast of characters reinvents this classic from the writer of The Caucasian Chalk Circle and Mother Courage, with Kurt Weill’s iconic music played live on stage by the actors themselves. Including well-known songs such as Mack the Knife and Pirate Jenny, expect a riotous musical comedy you will be begging to see!

English translation of the dialogue by Robert David MacDonald

English translation of the lyrics by Jeremy Sams

Original German text based on Elisabeth Hauptmann’s German Translation of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera.